Ownership Pride and Hewlett Packard calculators

I have been reflecting in how a calculator may be atractive to some, like me; and why this attractiveness is being reduced over the years. Talking about “owners’s pride”, I guess that it went downhill the moment HP decided to put all of their calculators in blisters. When you open an hp 41c box, or even an hp 12c original box, you were in presence of a luxury item. (And if you look at the prices then, it really was). Even though the vinyl cover of the hp 12c is a little crude, and the hp41c case color was really horrible!

(Some time ago, someone helped me realize a nice marketing trick from hp related to the 41c. Remember its case, which was longer than required by the calculator? That was to make room for the card reader. From day one, you knew that your brand new calculator was INCOMPLETE!)

HP realized the “ownership pride” issue when they released the anniversary models. They were packed in an special box, that could be used for display, but as well made the calculator much more like jewelry - worth paying the asking price. (By the way, please consider the concept of “Limited Edition” or “Anniversary” calculator: quite odd, isn’t it?)

Apparently, HP message is that 12c-related calculators will not be produced anymore. So if you are willing to get one, it is now or wait for atrocious prices in Ebay. Just see what happens with hp42s units!

It seems that hp’s current calculator management has invested a significant amount of time to create the new line, heralded by the hp 39gII, and continued by the HP Prime. They are going for the educational market, that they lost without a fight to Texas, many years ago. (Now Casio seems to be taking it over again from Texas -it is e only machine I see on desks these days. Even the cheaper HP school machines correspond to a Casio model). And HP is going for at market in a comprehensive way. They prepare calculators, data loggers, computer systems so that the professor takes control of all calculators in the class, everything working integrated. The main competitor here is not Texas anymore: is the ubiquitous iPad.

We’ve seen that the educational market will be well covered. Now, will the financial market be catered for? For a long while, the financial market was HP’s. There were some bad calculators produced in the past - I am thinking about the original 10b, the newer 20b, and partly the 30b. For the two latter, it is not that the software was not good -it is the hardware that was lacking. Horrible screen in both cases, horrible keyboard too in the first.

They have corrected that in the lower price point with the HP10bII+. It has a fantastic keyboard, a good screen and a nice, professional appearance. It comes with many more functions than the model it replaces, fully using two shift keys. It even has a break even analysis - something that none of the other financial calculators in HP had.

I think that now HP needs to release a “prestige” financial calculator, to replace the HP17bII+, and to succeed the HP19bII. Everywhere I find a user of the old HP19bII, they would spend a lot to get back that calculator, that helped them through their studies and that inevitably failed when the battery cover broke. There is room for HP to get that. Maybe based on the tactile screen used by the Prime?